"We are really seeing the worst of all possible worlds," said Peter Buchanan, senior economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto. "What we are looking at is storage levels will remain very high through the summer or the fall."

A coalition of environmental groups plans to stage a rally against 'Big Oil's corruption' on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, hours before President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address to Congress.

According to an annual analysis of global temperatures released earlier this week by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the planet’s average temperature was nearly one degree warmer in 2011 than it was in the middle of the 20th century.

Record Ice Loss and Tundra Melt Amplify Warming Feedbacks: NASA just (19 January 2012) released data showing that last year temperatures in the Arctic rose beyond the record established in 2010 - setting a new record for 2011. News of the record Arctic temperatures follows a series of alarming developments related to the Arctic in recent months.
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"We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting," said GISS director James E. Hansen in a NASA press release (NASA Finds 2011 Ninth Warmest Year on Record, 19 Jan 2012). "So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record."

[Japanese] government inspectors declared Onami’s rice safe for consumption after testing just two of its 154 rice farms.

Then, a few days later, a skeptical farmer in Onami, who wanted to be sure his rice was safe for a visiting grandson, had his crop tested, only to find it contained levels of cesium that exceeded the government’s safety limit. In the weeks that followed, more than a dozen other farmers also found unsafe levels of cesium. An ensuing panic forced the Japanese government to intervene, with promises to test more than 25,000 rice farms in eastern Fukushima Prefecture, where the plant is located.

Federal government analysts on Monday slashed their estimate of the natural gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale formation, and at least one major producer announced plans to cut in half its expenditures on new gas leases in the wake of dropping prices.

Valle I & II, the new plants, each utilize parabolic trough technology—where rows of curved mirrors concentrate sunlight in order to heat a liquid, which is turned into steam to power a generator. The plants will be able to store enough energy to continue operating seven and a half hours after sundown.

Exxon Mobil agreed Thursday to pay $1.6 million in penalties to the state of Montana over water pollution caused by a pipeline break last summer that fouled dozens of miles of shoreline along the scenic Yellowstone River. Montana Department of Environmental Quality director Richard Opper said the penalties in the case mark the largest in the agency's history.

Global warming threatens China's march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government's latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself.

The warnings are carried in the government's "Second National Assessment Report on Climate Change," which sums up advancing scientific knowledge about the consequences and costs of global warming for China --- the world's second biggest economy and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution.

High levels of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere mean the next ice age is unlikely to begin for at least 1,500 years, an article in the journal Nature Geoscience said on Monday.
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"(Analysis) suggests that the end of the current interglacial (period) would occur within the next 1,500 years, if atmospheric CO2 concentrations do not exceed (around) 240 parts per million by volume (ppmv)," the study said.

However, the current carbon dioxide concentration is of 390 ppmv, and at that level an increase in the volume of ice sheets would not be possible, it added.

Back then Dr. Evers and other biologists already knew that mercury contamination in lakes and rivers had caused the neurotoxins to accumulate in the bodies of fish. Water birds like common loons that feed primarily on freshwater fish had also been contaminated; the toxin attacked the nervous system, making them act strangely. Among other signs, Dr. Evers noticed that the contaminated birds had trouble sitting on their eggs long enough for them to hatch. They seemed easily distracted, and the impact on the rates of reproduction was alarming.

[It's] a "crisis in the making" in Boone County, where coal is such a big part of the economy, yet good coal seams are playing out and competition from other regions threatens future production levels.

PlanetSolar's Turanor, the world's largest solar-powered boat, is about to complete its record-breaking 18-month journey across the globe. The Swiss vessel, which, from the docks, looks like a futuristic speed boat outfitted for a NASCAR race—the hull doubles as a billboard for the trip's sponsor, the watchmaker Candino. From above, it's a sprawling solar-paneled space shuttle. When the Turanor pulls into Monaco in three months, it will be the first engine-propelled boat to make an around-the-world voyage fueled by sunlight alone.

It's simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. "Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake" footing. That simply won't be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It's not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.

The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
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"The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. "I am very worried - if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever."

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, says there's no question that the influence of his group and others like it has been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science. "If you look at where the situation was three years ago and where it is today, there's been a dramatic turnaround. Most of these candidates have figured out that the science has become political," he said.
...Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it."